Chapter 406 Conquering The Abandoned Tropical Island Dungeon

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Riven saw the memories of the Dungeon Core.

It was a world of beaches and islands, where countless treasure hunters sailed the seas in search of treasure and adventure.

He saw boats approaching unfamiliar shores, their crews leaning over the sides to get a better look.

Some islands were little more than sand and a few trees. Others had settlements stretching along the water, with ships coming and going.

There was always somewhere else to explore. Another island, another rumor of treasure waiting to be found.

In that world, there was an inconspicuous island where the Lizardman Shaman King lived.

Nothing about it seemed important at first. It was just one island among so many others, small enough that a passing crew might not bother to stop.

Yet the memories lingered there. Riven saw the king among his people, and for a moment, the treasure hunters and their adventures seemed far away.

The apocalypse came to this world as a rain of treasures, filling it with endless greed.

At first, it looked like something worth celebrating. Treasure falling from the sky! No need to follow a map or risk a journey across the sea. It was right there for anyone to take.

And that was the problem. Everyone wanted it, and having some wasn’t enough when someone else had more.

Islands sank, and entire nations were destroyed as everyone turned to piracy and savagery.

The ships Riven had seen arriving at the beaches now brought people who came to take whatever they could find. Finding treasure had stopped being an adventure.

And the king’s island was still there, with people who had nowhere else to go.

To save his people, the Lizardman Shaman King offered all his treasure to the greedy pirates.

The king had given them what they wanted. All of it! Riven watched him surrender the treasure, hoping that would be enough to make the pirates leave his people alone.

But even then, they kept reaching for more until their hands became gold before they could carry it away, they were consumed by greed and turned to gold, just like the rest of the world.

What good was all that treasure to them now?

The last surviving island was spared and saved by the system, becoming this gate...

The memories ended, leaving Riven staring at the blue core again. He could hear the sea outside the cave, just as he had before touching it.

So this place was what remained of an entire world...

He looked down at his own power. After seeing what had happened, the golden essence didn’t seem quite so appealing.

"A world consumed by greed..." Riven muttered, looking at the golden essence of his Greed Authority. "Reminds me of this damn world." He sighed and shook his head. "But what was that? Another Cosmic Monarch? And the other one, too, the Meteor of Death Energy... Are both related?"

Riven recalled the Obsidian Meteor, composed of pure Death Energy, that had destroyed the world the Lich came from and overrun it with undead.

He had seen what it left behind. A world overrun by undead, with the meteor at the center of its destruction. At the time, the Death Energy had seemed like enough of an explanation.

But after seeing what had happened to this island’s world, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Could that meteor have been a sentient being? Or even some kind of Cosmic Monarch?

He tried to remember if there had been anything in those memories that suggested it could think. Had it chosen that world? Had someone sent it there? Or was he trying to find a mind behind something that didn’t have one?

There was no way to tell from what he had seen.

That was annoying. He had more questions now, and destroying the bosses hadn’t answered any of them.

"Are there other types of Cosmic Monarchs? Or different powers used to bring these worlds to an end? The EOA, the End of All Things, seems rather shrewd about how he does things. What a cunning entity..." Riven sighed and shook his head. "I originally imagined he was a primal force of nature, but he’s much more than that, huh?"

He kept returning to the same question. Was the meteor itself responsible, or had it only been carrying out someone else’s will? Calling it a disaster didn’t tell him much about what had caused it.

If the EOA was choosing how each world would end, then Riven couldn’t expect the same disaster every time. And if he wasn’t, there was still something Riven didn’t understand about how all of this worked.

Either way, he needed more than a few memories before deciding he had figured it out.

Ding!

[Congratulations, Ascendant. As the one who carries the {Sovereign Codex}, you have been chosen as a Lord.]

The notification interrupted him before he could keep working through the possibilities. Riven looked at the message, then read the next one.

Well, at least the system had something definite to tell him.

[Using your Authority of Pride as a Lord, you have taken over the C-Rank Gate "Abandoned Tropical Island."]

[The former Gate Ruler, "Lizardman Shaman King," has been slain and cannot wrest control of the Gate from you. You have claimed the Gate.]

[The former C-Rank Gate Ruler, "Lizardman Shaman King," now serves you. Once he respawns, you can issue special commands to him.]

[You can now summon the Believer Race "Island Lizardman".]

[You gained +700 GP.]

Another race he could summon. Riven took note of the name, making sure he hadn’t skipped anything in the messages.

He had been busy wondering about the things destroying entire worlds, but these were benefits he could actually use. The Gate was his, the king would serve him, and the Island Lizardman race was now available to him.

That was a much easier situation to understand.

There was still plenty he didn’t know about the EOA and that meteor, but these questions would have to wait for later.

For now, he had taken control of the Gate.

And that meant... it was time for everyone else inside to get kicked out!

And oh boy, it was a lot of people due to the hundreds of fishing boats all around the island...

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